


Warm Bodies

by IlluminateandRelate



Series: I fix the end of Tokyo Ghoul [11]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Cuties, Depression, F/M, Fluff, Nightmares, PTSD, ayahina, mild angst tho, mild ptsd tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 16:28:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16664203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IlluminateandRelate/pseuds/IlluminateandRelate
Summary: Hinami would’ve had liked to say that she could handle it, that she was mature. She would’ve liked to say that it was under wraps and underway to a place distanced from now. She would’ve liked to have been like Ayato- firm in his judgment, unaffected as always.*Lil kids just finding their way :')





	Warm Bodies

**Author's Note:**

> *Waltzes in*  
> Oh hi! Didn't see you there :D Imma just drop this here real quick before I exit stage left!  
> Je suis desole my dudes, school is uhhhh hard and um school and uh homework.  
> Thanksgiving break tho :))))

Hinami would’ve had liked to say that she could handle it, that she was mature. She would’ve liked to say that it was underwraps and underway to a place distanced from now. She would’ve liked to have been like Ayato- firm in his judgement, unaffected as always.

The metaphorical blood on her hands begged her to think otherwise.

She scrubbed them beneath the cool tap, twisted the knob so the steady stream grew hot and scalded her chapped knuckles, hair falling into her face as she worked at them, minutes passing like blurred seconds before she let out an exasperated cry.

It didn’t matter.

_ None of it mattered _ .

She shoved off the faucet with her elbow and sagged forward on the cool porcelain of the sink, sighing as the sharp chill shot up her elbows.

Looking into the mirror Hinami sighed at the darkness smudged beneath her eyes, deep and pigmented enough it almost looked purposefully placed; hair hung stringy and greasy in her face, no doubt clogging her pores like mad; her eyes stared dull at the telltale shine of facial oil spread across her nose and forehead like a smear of paint. She leaned into the icy mirror, eyes closed.

_ I should take a shower, _ she thought, unmoving from the mirror. Her limbs heavy, unwilling, her skull as if it were slowly fusing to the reflective glass of the mirror.  _ Shower. _ Hinami’s mind echoed, further away this time, distant and nonchalant.  _ Yeah. _ Willing her fingers to reach the smeared mirror she waited one last beat before pushing her face back, body lucid and slow as she stepped back and undressed, finally kicking off her pants and stepping into the tub.

The water let out a freezing stream of sputters and she winced once before relaxing, stepping into the icy streams. Allowing the cryogenic chill of the air around her to envelope her body in a mind numbing hug. She’d been showering in the chilling temperatures for some time now, and it had taken quite some time to get used to the brutal shock of the cold at first, her soft body used to the lukewarm caress of drippy baths at Aogiri or the steaming sense-numbing saunas of bathhouses. The hot water was just too expensive here.

With that budding thought in mind Hinami finished soaping up quickly, fully aware of Ayato waiting outside in his room- they both had to work today- she rinsed and stepped out, toes burrowing into the wiry shower mat as she pulled the towel from its bar and wrapped it around her form.

“I’ll be out in a second!” She called, rubbing the cheap cloth to soak up as much liquid from her body as possible before mindlessly pulling on a clean set of plain, soft clothing.

Hinami snatched her brush from the counter before heading out and ducking into her room to the right, listening to the heavy steps trudging down the hall as she brushed her hair in the small fingerprint speckled mirror in her room. She squinted at her appearance in the pockmarked and scratched mirror, the warps marring the reflection of her face in the old surface.

Hell, the whole room was an old surface. Bits of drywall and paint flaked off at corners of the olive green walls, the hardwood floor dented in more places than Hinami could count and the wax long since gone leaving a dull glow and splinter hazard.

But it was their home. Their  _ own _ home. They worked minimum wage jobs for this, scrubbed up Ichika’s vomit when she got sick everywhere during babysitting jobs for this, risked the wrath of the general public when they moonlighted in retail for this. Touka  _ had _ offered a place to stay, a cozy little traditional home towards the outskirts of the city, to live with Ichika and them, but the days of depending on others were gone for her and Ayato. Their childhoods murdered long ago by circumstance. They were not children, and so they would not live like children. No matter the toll.

With one last exhausted survey Hinami slowly blinked at her reflection, the bright red outbreak on her forehead and the collection of pinhead black drops on her nose. She sighed, shaking her head and turned on her heel out the door- god knew how long a cab would take to hail at this hour.

 

***

 

Hinami’s sleeping eyes burst open to a jet-black haze. The disorienting collection of spotted darkness doing nothing for the racing in her chest, the frantic breaths blowing in and out of her lungs at rapid pace and audibly, her palms dotted with clammy sweat, and her fingers shaking with an after-adrenaline tremble. She squinted her eyes shut, whimpering.

The nightmares again.

Footsteps shattered the barriers between reality and dream, belonging to her life or her head she had no longer any idea. The  _ tap tapping _ of something across a hard surface, the heavy tread of a  _ something.  _ The cry, softly strangled in the depths. A fellow inmate or herself?

The shine of nothing and everything that loomed from the blackness of behind her eyelids invoked bursts of tenacious cramping from her taut muscles. The soupy disorientation of her brain a direct pipeline to the rapid thuds against her ribcage, blooming out with hope and shriveling inward with panic. The oxygen pumping with every breath to her limbs telling her to flee but her brain screaming to  _ remain. Still. _

Hinami’s eyes snapped open again at last to a screaming light, the previous darkness diminished by the flick of a switch and the room flooded into her senses as normal. She swung upward into a sitting position, kicking the blanket to the side and sucking in a deep breath; the immediate ooze of reality spilling into the tautness of her muscles and softening them.

“Hinami.”

Her eyes drifted to the doorway, the pouring light from outside in the hallway stopped by Ayato looking down to where she sat.

“Was I being loud?” she asked, watching as he shifted his weight to relax against the doorframe. His eyes were still droopy with the haze of a disturbed sleeper, and a pang twinged out inside Hinami’s chest as she realized  _ she’d _ been the one to wake him.

“A little,” he shrugged.

“Sorry.”

He flipped off the light in the hall and trudged into the room, taking a seat on the foot of the bed with one leg tucked beneath him. His eyes studied her as he leaned his weight onto his right arm and rested his head on his shoulder vision drifting from her disgruntled hair to the blankets scrunched around her legs.

“Dreams?”

Hinami slouched backward against the headboard, relaxing as her heart rate began tickering back to its normal rhythm. She nodded, closing her eyes, a wave of relief washing over her shoulders as she realized he wasn’t simply going to leave her in the blackness alone again.

She cracked open her eyes, “I get them bad sometimes, and more often when I’m stressed too.” 

Ayato nodded, silence lasting a beat before he glanced back up to her eyes, “Are they about Cochlea?”

“Sometimes,” she admitted, “It could’ve been worse there but-” her brain flashed back to the screams echoing throughout the nights as she lay beneath her thin blanket, shivering in the pitch black of nothingness before continuing, “It was  _ so  _ dark, all the time. Nobody talked to me save for Onee-chan, and I just.” She cut herself off before the thoughts grew too loud and pulled her previously thrown blankets back over her pale limbs. “Sometimes I forget I’m not there.”

She broke off eye contact, her throat tight with the drawing silence and pulled up her knees to her chest, resting her chin atop them. She felt the bed bounce up as Ayato stood up, presuming he had enough of her anxiety-riddled brain for one night and fought back the burning in her eyes as her lower lip threatened to tremble.

The lights flicked off, throwing her into black once more and she fisted her fingers in the sheets as she pulled her eyes shut in a tight squeeze. Trying, praying to anything that she could pull through without trembling like a coward in the ever shrinking space.

She felt the heavy push downward to her right and heard the tired yawn for several moments before she could come back to her senses and glance over. Ayato was stretching out next to her, pulling a separate blanket from her own over his shoulders as he rolled onto his side facing the wall.

A small smile fought its way from the wallowing panic in her chest as she looked over at his resting form, and she pushed her way back downward into the blankets. The heat radiating from his body like a small bonfire, soothing the everlasting crept of chill in her chest. He wouldn’t say anything about this ever if she brought it up around Touka, she knew that enough. He only wanted to believe he was a cold brute,  _ such bullshit _ .

She took a deep breath, relieved to no longer being alone, to keep the chill at and the heat in. Even if for only that moment.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Ty for reading, if you're still here after all this time (we love a good two-month hiatus bullshit) I love you even more. Stay legends my lovely readers. Also like, how shit is s2 of :re? GodDaMN.
> 
> ALSO WE NEED BETA READERS FOR THIS SUPER DOPE ART-FANFIC COLLABORATION PROJECT FOR MORE INFO GO HERE:  
> https://kirishimas-kagune.tumblr.com/post/180245912954/tokyoghoulreversebang-ahoy-readers-and
> 
>  
> 
> Come scream at me here: http://illuminateandrelate.tumblr.com/
> 
>  
> 
> Watch me scream here: https://www.instagram.com/kirishimas.kagune/?hl=en


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